I think it's that, in the minds of a huge number of fans, The Mandarin is fundamentally defined by his race and how his powers work and Ra's Al Ghul is not.

Maybe. Though the odd thing is, Ra's al-Gul has always been caucasian; the "fake" Ra's was the one with the changed race.

As for why the massive ( fan ) reaction against the Mandarin twist? I have some theories about it, but none of them really satisfy me.

1. "The Mandarin looked like he'd be a dark, serious villain in the Joker mold. Then he was revealed to be just another pulp world conqueror." Possible, but iffy. The backlash feels more like offended Marvel fans, who shouldn't have been expecting a Nolan-esque plot anyway. Besides, I tend to see a lot of disdain for the numerous Ledger Joker clones amongst fandom these days.

2. "Killian isn't true to the comics!" Only works if you assume the fans in question are completely clueless, as the Kingsley Mandarin has absolutely nothing to do with the comics version, even less so than Killian. I'm certainly willing to believe there are clueless fans who believe something that makes no sense on even casual thought, but this loud and persistent a rage, with its implied numbers of outraged fans?

3. "Shane Black lied to me!" No, he didn't, not anymore than any other trailer, really. I hear a lot of complaints about trailers always spoiling, so why get outraged when a trailer actually doesn't spoiler for once? Also, it makes little sense why *this* deceptive trailer would set off the outrage.

4. "I actually don't mind Killian, but I hate that Pepper killed him! So I'm going to complain about the Mandarin twist rather than admit to my misogyny!" I am totally willing to believe that this is the underlying reasoning to not a few of the outraged fans. However, I've seen plenty of people complain about the Mandarin, who also at least claim to like Pepper fine.

Maybe its just a perfect storm, of a whole bunch of largely unrelated meme strains that happened to coincide at once?

It’s in progress. It will have to remain under wraps,” the actor continued. “Marvel was so brilliant in the way they kept the transition from the Mandarin to Trevor Slattery in Iron Man 3. They were absolutely brilliant at it. I so respect the way they dearly want to surprise their audiences. But we will just have to leave it in the realm of rumor.”

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This is my design.

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Originally Posted by Tacit Ronin

The way SONY dominated Marc Webb was way more hardcore than anything in 50 Shades anyways.

2. "Killian isn't true to the comics!" Only works if you assume the fans in question are completely clueless, as the Kingsley Mandarin has absolutely nothing to do with the comics version, even less so than Killian. I'm certainly willing to believe there are clueless fans who believe something that makes no sense on even casual thought, but this loud and persistent a rage, with its implied numbers of outraged fans?

Very true. Kingsley was basically playing Yellow Claw. There was nothing about him that reminded me of The Mandarin whatsoever.

When The Killiandarin was running around shirtless with dragon tattoos and karate-chopping armors in half, THAT reminded me of The Mandarin.

The Mandarin is a barbarian warlord and berzerker martial artist. He's more Gorilla Grodd than Ra's Al Ghul.

What's most baffling about this is when Batman Begins turned Ra's Al Ghul into a white guy who had an ethnic body double, used the name of a lesser known and unrelated character, and didn't have the supernatural power source that he had in the comics but otherwise had the same motivation, MO, and backstory, no one cared.

That is because...
1) They didn't turn the character into a joke.
2) Real Ra's was far more interesting than the fake Ra's.

And most importantly...
3) The movie wasn't falsely marketed on the fake Ra's. The film was marketed on Batman's origin, the beginning of Batman. Most people didn't even know who the villains were going into the film. IM3 was specifically marketed on this being the big battle between Iron Man and the Mandarin - Kingsley's Mandarin specifically. Something that has been built up and hyped since IM1 and for even longer than even The Avengers was. We knew going in that we wouldn't get the Mandarin of the comics. We knew since IM1 - since the very beginning of the MCU - that we wouldn't get comic book Mandarin. Almost nobody was expecting comic book Mandarin. What we did expect is to see the Mandarin of the trailers, the Mandarin that Favreau had in mind. Nobody gives two ****s if Killian or Trevor is closer to comic book Mandarin because regardless of the case, it is entirely superfluous to the reason why we're disappointed in the first place.

There are galaxies of difference between what BB did and what IM3 did.

I didn't like the fake Mandarin bit very much. My impression was that there was no Mandarin; he was just a concept Killian had concocted to give a face to his terrorism. Then at the end Killian blurts out that "I AM THE MANDARIN!" WTF? Was that supposed to be a reveal? We already knew Killian was behind everything. What's the point in calling yourself the Mandarin? He might as well have yelled out "I AM M.O.D.O.K.!" It would've been equally meaningless.

__________________"Jesus had his day off when they pulled you through."
-Bruce Dickinson, Accident of Birth

Very true. Kingsley was basically playing Yellow Claw. There was nothing about him that reminded me of The Mandarin whatsoever.

When The Killiandarin was running around shirtless with dragon tattoos and karate-chopping armors in half, THAT reminded me of The Mandarin.

The Mandarin is a barbarian warlord and berzerker martial artist. He's more Gorilla Grodd than Ra's Al Ghul.

See my problem with Killian as the Mandarin is mostly about his costume and to a smaller degree his powers. Now, I know it is superficial (as a characters personality and traits have more relationship to who a character is then these other attributes), and in this way Killian did seem similar to the Mandarin from the comics, but I am an artist and I tend to be a very visual person. As a result I felt Ben Kingsley's look (pre Trevor) felt like more of the Warlord character I see the Mandarin to be in the comics. Even the image you provided above (while not really in robes) still has that Warlord impression, and while the Mandarin did wear a suit and tie in some of his incarnations in the comics, I always felt those versions did little to separate him visually as a character, as a suit and tie just seems so predictable, boring and very unimaginative. Now I realize the image above also shows a Dragon tattoo, that one could suggest ties Killian's Mandarin to the character, but to me that still does not do enough to convey the Warlord look of the character, that I personally feel best describes the Mandarin visually. As for the Powers from the rings, I would have loved to see them working (I won't lie), but I was prepared to accept them as a symbol that connected Ben Kingsley's Mandarin pre Trevor to Iron Man 1, as he still looked very Mandarin-ish with his warlord type costume. He also seemed to be very much in control and very strategic, which we later learn was not Ben Kingsley's doing, but Guy Pearce's, but before the twist he seemed to have some of those inner Mandarin traits as well. So anyways, as I have said before I am not necessarily against Killian being the Mandarin, but I just hope if they use him moving forward that they can give him more of a Warlord look to tie him more visually into the comics and maybe show him gaining more control of the Extremis virus so that he can conduct various types of powers from his hands instead of just fire. Although, I would equally be okay with the idea some other people have had about Killian learning about the Mandarin as a legend and took the name for himself and fashioned Ben Kingsley's character after what he thought the Mandarin would look like, and only to find out the Mandarin is real and unhappy with the incompetence of Killian and his lackey's. I guess for me I am just not completely satisfied with how things are at the moment, but I feel Marvel can still correct these things moving forward in a variety of ways without destroying the events that unfold within the Iron Man 3 movie. But, I guess we will see what happens.

Surfer

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Wolvieboy17..... "It's slow and relelentless, like being beaten to death with a sponge."

I've already accepted Killian as the Mandarin, and i now just want to see more of him karate chopping Iron Man.

Okay, fair enough you liked what we got with Iron Man 3, but would you accept Killian any less as the Mandarin moving forward if he was to wear more of a Warlord looking costume in lets say Iron Man 4 or somewhere down the line with the Masters of Evil (provided of course it all made sense within the context of the movie)? Because I can't see why that would bother any fan, and I also think it would help those fans (like myself) that didn't care for the way the character was portrayed with accepting it. That is just the way I see it though.

Surfer

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Wolvieboy17..... "It's slow and relelentless, like being beaten to death with a sponge."

I've already accepted that IM3 was just a story Stark was telling Banner, and he started throwing in a bunch of BS when he saw Banner wasn't really paying attention (right around the time of the Trevor reveal).

__________________"Jesus had his day off when they pulled you through."
-Bruce Dickinson, Accident of Birth

1) I enjoyed the movie as I have all IM movies.
2) I don't read the books so I had no idea who "mandarin" or "Killian" were
3) I wanted to see Iron Man fight Ben Kingsley's character. The one who was in the trailers.

I didn't "hate" the twist, but I was disappointed. I thought the master terrorist guy with American pants, Japanese boots etc was more interesting than the nerdy science guy turned attractive playboy.

Basically Kingsley's character in the first half of the movie was better than Killian was, plain and simple from someone who doesn't know anything about IM beyond these movies. I wanted to see them fight.

That said, still enjoyed the film, the twist didn't hurt it for me, I just thought it was unneccessary. Didn't care about rings or any of that jazz, just thought the initial Mandarin from the trailers would have made the best blow out to the IM triology.

4. "I actually don't mind Killian, but I hate that Pepper killed him! So I'm going to complain about the Mandarin twist rather than admit to my misogyny!" I am totally willing to believe that this is the underlying reasoning to not a few of the outraged fans. However, I've seen plenty of people complain about the Mandarin, who also at least claim to like Pepper fine.

Maybe its just a perfect storm, of a whole bunch of largely unrelated meme strains that happened to coincide at once?

Pepper killed him? Nah, he probably escaped, it's not difficult to explain, he just survive a suit explosions mortality and an explosions 10 times bigger than that.

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Originally Posted by childeroland

Plenty of male-led action films fail, yet the actors' gender is not blamed. Why should it be different for women? Especially since far more male-led action films are made than female-led action films?

Okay, fair enough you liked what we got with Iron Man 3, but would you accept Killian any less as the Mandarin moving forward if he was to wear more of a Warlord looking costume in lets say Iron Man 4 or somewhere down the line with the Masters of Evil (provided of course it all made sense within the context of the movie)? Because I can't see why that would bother any fan, and I also think it would help those fans (like myself) that didn't care for the way the character was portrayed with accepting it. That is just the way I see it though.

Surfer

I was a bit disapointed at first, but i have come to accept it and would like to see the Mandarin again, and not a retcon where Trevor turns into the "real" Mandarin, i'm talking about Killian.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by childeroland

Plenty of male-led action films fail, yet the actors' gender is not blamed. Why should it be different for women? Especially since far more male-led action films are made than female-led action films?

What's most baffling about this is when Batman Begins turned Ra's Al Ghul into a white guy who had an ethnic body double, used the name of a lesser known and unrelated character, and didn't have the supernatural power source that he had in the comics but otherwise had the same motivation, MO, and backstory, no one cared.

I think expectations were lower back then. For my part, I was just thrilled by what they DID get right about Ras. better than almost any attempt at a comic villain outside of Spider-man 2 for me. Blame Loki if you want, because he's a hard bar to match and he's pretty spot on the spirit and many of the details of the character.

Killain just felt like a lesser creature that the guy I was expecting. I felt super Osama kind of missed the point also though. That being said , if I hadn't loathed the rest of the movie including the final fight scene, I might not care as much.